I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice

100 Words about Baseball

Why I Love Baseball

There is no clock
90 feet between bases is genius
There are secret signs
Hanging curveballs are sexy
Numbers are magic: 755, 56, 7, 61, 1.12
Tinker to Evers to Chance
Ivy at Wrigley
The Green Monster
The suicide squeeze
Cracker Jack
Walt Whitman liked it
Jackie Robinson and Pee-Wee Reese
It just feels American
The seventh-inning stretch
Superstition
Guys in tight pants
Bull Durham
Centerfield
There’s no crying in baseball
Cooperstown
A great play at the plate
Chatter
Pepper
High socks
Tradition
Spring training
Keeping score
The rubber game
The infield fly rule
162 chances

Become a Fan

January 2009

In this case, this isnt' my memory, but memories shared by one of my mother's best friends. This is from an email sent a couple of weeks after Mother died. I've saved a printed version of this email but I want to make sure I document it in several places so that I never lose it.

Tara,I wanted to send you and your family a note and tell you how sorry we are for your loss. As you know, your mom and dad have been our dear friends forever. Even though we haven't seen each other for a while, we still have that connection. I am so sorry and sad to lose such a good person.

Your mother was my mentor when it came to motherhood. She was there for me when I had my first son when we all lived in Homestead. She prepared me for everything. There was nothing during my pregnancy that came as a surprise because Jan left nothing unsaid. I knew what I did and didn't need, also when and where I should go to buy things. No question was too silly or ridiculous to ask her. And I even had Jillian to practice holding, feeding, etc.

Then we left for Japan where I had my second son. Although we she wasn't physically with me, she was with me in my heart. And all we had shared gave me the courage to try this motherhood thing again.

I have never met anybody who enjoyed being a mom so much and who was so willing to share her love with others. Jan taught me that laughter and tears were part of the pleasure that would come with this life-long job. Many years ago she gave me the confidence to be a good mother. But most of all she showed me to just plain be a "mom." For that I am forever grateful.

In recent years, we haven't been in touch as often. I suppose that is normal, too. But we were friends forever and when we did talk on the telephone it was like we have never been apart. I feel sad that I didn't call more often, especially these last few months. When I did speak to her she was always reassuring me that she felt well and not to worry about her.

(some other stuff about passing along her thoughts, how to keep in touch)

Joe and I are watching the inauguration coverage on DVR and we got to the "backstage" walk-throughs by the former vice presidents. Joe was surprised to see Dan Quayle (he just doesn't enter the average person's consciousness too often, I suppose) and grumbled a bit about his presence. The conversation went a little something like this (a lot like this as it's about verbatim):

Me: Joe, the man was Vice President of the United States. He deserves to be there.Joe: You know what John Nance Garner said the Vice Presidency is worth, right?Me: Yeah, I know, "It isn't worth a warm bucket of piss." Joe: RightMe: Well, guess what? The value of the office just went up because today it's also good for a prime seat for the most significant inauguration of this country's history.*"

Does that mean the bucket has gone from warm to piping hot? Now there's an upgrade.

*I suppose you could make an argument for Washington or Lincoln, but in terms of how far we've come, I stand behind my hyperbole.

Regardless of political affiliation or ideology, there is no denying the historical significance of this day. It's a day I always thought was possible yet never believed I would see in my lifetime. A day that draws a line forever between a past where millions of children were told "you can be whatever you want" and a future when they really can be. A day when the still present divide of race is narrowed immeasurably.

I think about the consistent rallying cry of the Obama campaign: Yes We Can. Simple, powerful words.

Yes We Can...

...bring people together....give people hope....begin to heal some of the wounds of people who have been treated as "less than."...repair our standing in the eyes of the world....restore belief that our government represents the richness of diversity in our country, not simply the rich....begin the hard work of repairing our economy for the good of all, not simply the good of Wall Street.

I'm not wholly idealistic about this. I know that millions of people do not agree with me. I know many are unhappy with the result of this election in terms of political ideology and many are even upset that a white man is not taking that oath today. Today erases neither partisanship nor racism. But for today (and probably many days to come), I will celebrate. I am proud to be a liberal. I am proud to be a Democrat. I am proud to be an American. I will rejoice at the progress our nation has made. I will feel renewed hope that we can continue along that path.

I'll admit it, I'm a closet singer. Well, a car singer anyway. Sometimes a shower singer. I have one of those voices that sounds heinous if I sing softly, but sounds only mildly dreadful if I really belt it out. There are very few people who are privy to my vocal stylings because I'm pretty shy. It takes a lot of energy to get past my deep introvert roots to unleash that voice in front of anyone.

I spent the last week of the year at my sister Jillian's house in Alabama and we played a lot of Guitar Hero World Tour - I bought the game and guitar for Jillian as a gift (she already had one guitar for the older versions of the game). We were having so much fun playing guitar and bass together that after a few days, she picked up a microphone so we could use the sing-along function of the game. Neither of us being too proud of our singing capabilities, we wondered who we could get to come over and sing and she suggested her friend Courtney.

As it turned out, Courtney, having her own life, was not immediately available to come over sing. couldn't wait, and so my brother-in-law Gary and I picked up the guitars and let Jillian take the mic for the first song. She tried to get me to sing, but I was having none of it. (Really, I was trying to be kind.) Jillian has a better singing voice than I do, but she has the same shyness problem I have, so her first song was fine, but not exactly band-fronting material. This was just not going to do.

"Let me show you how it's done," I said, taking the mic. As I type this, I'm realizing that I walked right into her plan. She's clever like that. Realizing this was A Moment - one where I could do an okay job and we could have an okay time, or one where I could let it all hang out and we could maybe have a great time. I figured, what the hell? I'll go with door number two. And in keeping with that decision, I chose The Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" for my debut. No half-assing allowed.

And then, my friends, I rocked the house.

I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard. Jillian and I were both crying from laughing so hard. For my next performance, I sang "One Way or Another" by Blondie. (I never realized how much of a stalker anthem this is.) Again, more laughing until it hurts. (which makes it sound less fun, no?) We took a break and I said to Jillian that hopefully Courtney could come over soon and Jillian said through her tears, "Oh, no! I don't want anyone to ever sing but you. You are the BEST LEAD SINGER EVER!"

Rest assured that she really meant "No one could possibly be as ridiculous as you."

If you are keeping score, that's ridiculous fun - 1, quiet maintenance of dignity - 0. Sounds about right to me.

My good friend Stinky has made a late but nonetheless admirable start on Blog365, or blogging every day. I've been feeling guilty about my own blog-negligence, so this was just the peer pressure inspiration I needed to get my blogging butt in gear. Let's get clear that I'm not even pretending I'll post every day. Not going to happen, so why set an unrealistic expectation that I won't live up to and then beat myself up for not living up to to the point that I am demotivated to blog at all? So I'll just work on posting more frequently and if I have stretches of consecutive daily posts, then that's just icing.

That said, I'm not exactly exploding out of the gate. It takes a bit to get the ol' bloglegs back. (How many times can I say "blog" in this blog post? Let's leave it at 7, shall we?) I have a lot I want to say but I need to get to bed earlier tonight and I ought to pace myself, so I thought I'd start out with a little meme. I came across this one and it resonated with me since I've recently spent some time adding a few photos to my Facebook profile. As with all good memes, we'll do the rules first:

Go to your picture files

Go to your 6th folder.

Go to your 6th picture.

Tell us about it.

Tag 6 friends to do the same.

Okie-dokie, here it is:

This photo was taken in the marketplace inside the pyramid at Epcot's Mexico pavilion. We have a tradition of taking a photo at this fountain each trip (we've missed a couple - there have been a lot of trips!), but this time Alex was interested in the hats, so we grabbed one and had him pose for a picture. I don't recall what happened next or why he was pointing back at me. It isn't the best picture since he's probably a nanosecond away from saying something to me. This picture was taken on 26 September 2006, just before his 5th birthday and shortly after he began kindergarten - when I look at the date, it seems like a heartbeat ago, but when I look at this picture, I'm shocked. He looks so little compared to today - there's still some chubbiness to his cheeks. There's really nothing I can say about how it makes me feel, because any words I could put to it would be cliche. (I can never make an accented "e" in Typepad for some reason.)